


April Showers Bring Crack Fics

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A Literally "Sticky" Situation, Animal Hijinks, Bodyswap, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Crack, Darcy Lewis April Fool's Crack Challenge, Darcy Lewis's Taser, F/F, Ficlet Collection, Fluff and Crack, Humor, Meet-Cute, Misread the Instructions, Mistaken Identity, Multi, Must Include Cowboy Boots, Must Include a Kazoo, Must Include a Unicycle, Polyamory, Sex Pollen, Taser Mishaps, dlaf2018, wardrobe malfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-17 03:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: 10 days, 10 prompts; my ficlets for the 2018 Darcyland Crack Challenge. Variety of pairings and implausible themes ahoy!





	1. Animal Hijinks - PG-13 (language only) - Darcy/Pepper

It began with a single white hair.

The offending strand, barely two inches in length, was discovered on an official Iron Man merchandise throw pillow that rested on one of the communal lounge’s very plush couches. With many of the tower’s residents, its discovery would have been shrugged off without a second thought. With the tower’s owner… well, Tony Stark isn’t exactly known for his habit of not sweating the small stuff. The Where-The-Fuck-Did-This-Fur-Come-From Inquisition went from zero to sixty in the space of an hour.

By the time Tony and his Secondary High Inquisitor--the long-suffering Doctor Bruce Banner--got the lab results revealing the white hair to be from a Great Pyrenees more fur had been found. The tower was on lock down. Camera footage was being combed through with all the computing power that could be spared. With the patience of an absolute saint, Bruce made his way from person to person with a StarkPad to put them through Tony’s thorough questionnaire. Bruce had barely made it through the low level staff when the results came back on the second round of fur.

Curly grey strands from a poodle were discovered on the mats of one of the training rooms. Short, sleek hairs from a dachshund were scattered across the carpet in one of the observation rooms. Fragments of the thick winter coat of an Alaskan husky were clumped on a blanket that had been thrown haphazardly over a different couch from the one where the original offender was found. The soft fluff of a pomeranian appeared in one of the penthouse elevators. DUM-E, the poor, miraculously stupid robot, whirled himself into the lab with his bottom half liberally coated in the shed hairs of a Siamese cat. Miraculously, the cameras were having critical malfunctions in every place that fur appeared.

The violation of his strict “No Pets in Avengers Tower” policy was well on the way to driving Tony complete bonkers before dinner time.

High in the fortress that was the Stark Industries CEO’s office on the floors just below the Avengers’ residences, two women watched the insanity play out in high definition on the best holo-screens that Stark tech could provide. They’d been cuddled up in the comfy pajamas they both kept hidden in the office since late morning when the White Hair of Doom had been found. They were surrounded by a collection of snack foods, fuzzy blankets, and comfortable pillows. As they watched, Tony threw a spectacular fit in the middle of the lab when Bruce brought him the news of more fur in half a dozen more places.

“Where did you get such a variety?” Pepper asked, nudging her companion’s ankle with a bunny slipper clad foot.

Darcy gave a bit of a feral grin. “I volunteer at a shelter on the weekends. Been collecting for the last two months. Endless possibilities.” She stretched and snuggled closer, drawing a crocheted afghan over both of their laps. “Any regrets leaving him for me?”

“Certainly not,” Pepper snorted, twining their hands together. “Especially not after this.” She gestured to one of the screens where a miraculously calm Dr. Banner was fighting not to laugh behind Tony’s back when Captain America found cat hair in his uniform. “This is revenge for _years_ of the weird crap he put me through.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agreed, smiling wistfully. “I really think this might be some of my best work.”

When Bucky Barnes walked into the lab with clumps of fur stuck between the plates of his prosthetic arm, they actually got to see Tony break down in hysterical tears.


	2. Misread the Instructions/Recipe - PG-13 (language & inuendo) - Darcy Lewis/Peter Quill, mentions Darcy/Peter/Gamora

How she’d managed to end up in space in the first place wasn’t nearly as important as the fact that Darcy Lewis was a bona fide member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Sort of. On a trial basis. Maybe just because they’d needed an extra pair of hands on this one outing since teenage Groot was usually too busy on his handheld game to be bothered with helping. Shut up.

She was totally a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and she had the backpack full of gadgets to prove it.

Explosions and laughter rang out in the distance along with a lot of swearing and gunfire. Drax and Rocket were in charge of the distraction. Gamora and Groot were on the sidelines to get the two nutcases out of trouble once they were solidly in it. Gamora, the only voice of reason, really, was also relaying the state of enemy activity through the comms. Darcy, bag of tricks slung over one shoulder, was making her way through the compound with Star-Lord. They actual made a pretty good team, and nothing could really compare to the amount of banter they threw out in hushed whispers while the darted from shadow to shadow and generally avoided much of the place’s population.

Normally, Mantis would be on the ground with the rest of the Guardians. Unfortunately, the empath had been kidnapped by some mad scientists that Rocket just so happened to recognize. The group had tracked the scientists here and Darcy had readily agreed to go in with them to retrieve their kidnapped comrade. Rocket, overcome with joy at the thought of wreaking havoc, had made up her goody bag of pretty much all kinds of bombs.

Peter turned a corner and almost immediately backed up into her. Before she could question him, a hail of bullets rained down on the spot where he’d just been standing. “Well,” he quipped, giving her a wry grin, “so much for sneaking.”

“Are you sure you were ever a thief?” Darcy asked with a laugh while she dug around in her bag.

“Of course,” Quill assured her. At a pause in the gunfire he leaned around the corner and fired a couple shots of his own. “Just more Indiana Jones than cat burglar.”

She finally pulled out a jar with a couple of vials and a slip of paper taped to its side, squinted at the directions she’s scribbled on the paper, and set to work. “How many Indiana Jones movies did you see?”

“What kind of question is that? There’s only two.”

“Aw, dude. I have so much to show you. They made a third one in ‘89 and a fourth in 2008.” She tipped half of one vial into the jar and studied the directions again. The hallway they were in really wasn’t that well lit.

Quill gaped at her, completely ignoring the next burst of gunfire. “They made more!? This is like frickin’ Christmas!”

“Don’t get too excited. The fourth one wasn’t great.” Finally, Darcy screwed the lid on the jar and admired her handiwork. She could have sworn Rocket had told her that the liquid would turn bright green throughout, but what she had was more like blue dollops in a lava lamp. With a shrug she handed it to Peter. “Here, throw that at them. Should make a big boom.”

“Are you sure it’s supposed to look like that?”

“Throw the damn jar or I’m going to start quoting the movies you haven’t seen.”

“Meanie.” He threw the jar. They heard the glass break.

There was no boom.

A great _squelching_ sound erupted from the hall. Whoever the people were that had been firing all the bullets screamed. Then there was silence. Cautiously, Peter and Darcy both peeked around the corner.

An enormous blue blob was making its way down the corridor, consuming everything in its path. Pieces of the gunmen and their weapons floated in its translucent body, steadily dissolving in whatever hazardous material Darcy had created. As they watched it reached the end of the hallway and turned toward the sound of more gunfire, a trail of turquoise slime left in its wake.

“Did you just turn one of Rocket’s bombs into the Blob?”

“You must be imagining things,” Darcy insisted. “We haven’t even gotten into the bag of tricks yet.”

“Got it. Wasn’t us.” His immediate resolution to play along made her want to kiss him. Peter pulled out a small map. “Looks like her cell is actually in this hall.”

They made their way into the hall, carefully stepping around the trails of slime. Mantis’ door was right in the middle next to wear the guns must have been set up. Peter jogged up to the door first and spoke in hushed tones through the tiny window. Once he’d made sure that Mantis was inside he waved Darcy over. She knelt by the door and rummaged through the bag again.

“You sure we should use something out of there?” Peter asked, one eyebrow raised. With a roll of her eyes, Darcy produced a small set of charges with just enough _oomph_ to blow a door off its hinges and a detonator.

“These suckers aren’t Rocket’s,” she assured him. “SWAT issue door charges. Specially made to make an entrance with relatively little sound and boom. I’ve got a ton in my luggage.”

“Excellent.” Peter nodded with approval and turned to the window in the door. “Mantis, stay back from the door.” Darcy was too focused to listen for Mantis’ response. In a matter of seconds she had the charges all placed, and she dragged Quill down the hall to push the button on the detonator. With the exact result they were supposed to have, the charges let out short bursts of concussive energy and the door fell inwards. They rushed in together to find Mantis seated on a narrow bed directly across from the door looking no worse for wear. Grinning and triumphant, they both went to retrieve their wayward companion.

“Wait! Stop!” Before the words were completely out of Mantis’ mouth, they had each laid a hand on one of her bare arms and hauled her to her feet. Mantis stared at each of their hands in turn. “It would have been better if you hadn’t touched me.”

Darcy and Peter both yanked their hands back in an instant, shooting one another a panicked glance before studying the empath. She was a little bruised around the eyes as though she hadn’t slept since she was taken, but otherwise didn’t look like she’d been horribly mistreated.

“Uh, Mantis,” Peter asked, wiping his hand on his pants, “why shouldn’t we touch you?”

“The scientists here wished to breed me in order to cultivate my empathic abilities.” Her black eyes blinked, wide and innocent, up at him. “Unfortunately, they were not prepared for the physiology of my species. The treatments they gave me do not work on me, but their effects can be passed to mammalian species through physical contact.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Darcy squirmed. The first hint of a flush had begun to spread across her body, and she had a sneaking suspicion of what the effects might be. “Let me guess: they gave you some kind of drug concoction to make you compliant and increase libido to a point that would be almost painful.”

Mantis gasped in delight. “That is correct! It might have worked if it were not for my abilities. Instead of affecting my drives and desires it instead is projected outwards from my body.” With a groan, Darcy leaned against the wall of the cell and banged her head against the wall.

“Does somebody want to explain that in real people terms?” Peter asked, looking from Darcy to Mantis with wide eyes. “Am I gonna die?”

“We’ve been sex pollened.” Darcy pulled her glasses off long enough to scrub one hand over her eyes. “Depending on the potency, we’ve got a limited amount of time before we’re both so horny we’ll fuck anything that’ll have us.”

“That’s a thing!?”

“Surprisingly common. We had forms for chosen partners and shit when I was working with the Avengers.” She leaned her head around the doorway. No enemies in sight. “I’ve been through a couple of different varieties before. I’ll explain the finer points on the way back to the ship, but first…” Darcy grabbed Peter by the collar, leaning up on her tiptoes until they were eye to eye. “We’ve got a very short few minutes before the idea of consent is dubious at best. I’m down for the sexings with you or Gamora or both. No one else. You?”

Quill’s eyes had glazed over. “Oh, I’m gonna be remembering that mental image for the rest of my life.” He shook himself out of the daze and grinned down at her. “Same. You and Gamora, together or separate. Please don’t let Rocket anywhere near Peter Junior.”

Darcy nodded and let him go. “Good. You lead the way.” She shoved him through the door and ushered Mantis after him. “Let’s get back quick. I’m not much of an exhibitionist and we should probably try to explain this to Gamora and get her thoughts before we make with the fun times.”

“Why is there slime everywhere?” Mantis asked sweetly as she followed them down the hall. “I didn’t know it came in such pretty colors.”


	3. Taser Mishaps - PG-13 (language - 5+1, multiple pairings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never tried a 5+1 fic before, and this prompt just really seemed to be perfect for it. It might have gotten a little bit out of hand, lol. I'd only planned for these to be shorts.
> 
> Darcy/Jack Rollins  
> Darcy/Thor

**Five Times Darcy Had to Apologize for a Wrongful Tazing, and the One Time it Worked Out in Her Favor**

 

Foster’s intern/assistant (later known as Tony’s favorite pain in the ass) was what you might call a little  _ jumpy _ . Rightfully so given some of the things she’d survived. A Norse god falling from the sky, the Destroyer living up to its name with the small town destruction, and a bunch of Drow wannabes hammering through London bent on universal destruction were all pretty valid reasons for being a little reactive. That didn’t mean it didn’t absolutely suck when one was on the receiving end of her reactions. Especially after Stark gave her an upgrade.

The sadistic billionaire, of course, thought getting to see a pint-sized, top heavy millennial routinely drop his teammates was the most hilarious thing in the world. Whenever there was a new victim, he would harass them about it for days. He even sent out annual highlight reels of what he considered to be the most entertaining tazings. Those highlight reels always started with the original taser incident that he had been lucky enough to witness in person.

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Ground Zero: No Love for Jack-Booted Thugs ~*~*~*~*~*~**

Tony was giving Clint Barton the grand tour of Stark/Avengers Tower. They’d been through all of the residential and communal floors and had finally made their way to the labs. The goal was to eventually end up in Tony’s personal lab where he planned to present the archer with a custom fit pair of Stark tech hearing aids, new body armor, and a few improved arrow gadgets. Unfortunately, they stopped to pay a short visit to Bruce and see how Thor’s lady-love was settling in. While they were chatting with Bruce, Jane’s intern turned a corner with her arms full of boxes. She popped her gum and hummed along to the beat of whatever was playing in her earbuds.

Until she spotted Clint.

“Ahh! Jack-booted thug!” she shouted, releasing the boxes from her hands. The taser was in her hands before the boxes hit the ground, and she fired the wired bolts before Clint could even raise his arms in surrender. Hawkeye dropped like a sack of potatoes. “Don’t worry! I got him! We won’t let him take Stark tech the way he helped the Strategic Homeland Whatever-the-Fuck take all our shit in New Mexico!”

Bruce, at least, had the good graces to hide his amusement behind one hand. Tony cackled like an old biddy who’d gone just senile enough to shamelessly hit on all the hot young nurses at the retirement home. In fact, he laughed so long and loud that by the time he got himself under control the intern had pulled out her earbuds and was calmly reloading the taser.

“Oh, man,” Tony sighed, still giggling intermittently. “What’s your name again, kid?”

“Darcy Lewis,” she told him tartly, pursing her lips. “I don’t see what’s so funny. Jane lost a ton of research and equipment to him and his friends.”

Another bubble of laughter, and then Tony took a deep breath to force himself to be calm. “I’m not surprised. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t friendly when you have paperwork they want.” He nudged Clint with a boot, snorting when his fellow Avenger’s head tilted to one side and a bit of drool dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. “But this guy? He’s an Avenger these days. Fought Loki and his alien goons and everything.”

Darcy’s eyes got comically wide. “Oh.” She carefully holstered the taser and blew another bubble with her gum. “Guess that means I owe him an apology.”

“If you want. How much is Foster paying you?” Coming up beside her, Tony snagged the taser and started turning it over in his hands.

“I’m an intern. No pay.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not gonna work for me. The video I’m sure JARVIS got of that beautiful moment is worth Barton’s weight in gold.” He tossed the taser over his shoulder into a pile of junk parts.

“Hey!”

“That thing’s weak. If you’re going to work here, I’m making you a better one.”

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Just Trying to Help ~*~*~*~*~*~**

It wasn’t long after the mess with the Dark Elves before Thor talked Jane into relocating back to the tower. Darcy, of course, came with. Thor took on the monumental task of sweeping Jane off-site where she wouldn’t be able to try and insist that she was the only one who could move her very sensitive equipment, and Darcy took point directing the muscley guys in their jeans and t-shirts with what went where. Since Thor had leant a hand to a couple of Rogers’ ops with S.H.I.E.L.D., the Star-Spangled Man with the Plan roped a couple of the guys from STRIKE into helping out on moving day. Darcy was always happy to work with Steve since they’d gotten to be pretty good friends during her first bout of residency at the tower. Rollins was polite and quiet, following directions with single-minded military focus. Rumlow…

Brock Rumlow was a fucking dick.

His mouth never seemed to stop running, and most of what he had to say was either cocky bullshit or commentary on Darcy’s legs and backside in the tiny pair of cutoffs she’d chosen to wear that day. Darcy wasn’t about to deny that he looked good, but after he made it clear how aware he was of that fact he lost his novelty. By the third trip to the box truck Steve was challenging Rumlow to a boxing match and even Rollins was starting to grind his teeth.

Unfortunately, a group of hard up mercenaries thought Foster’s intern and equipment would be an easy target for a ransome. Even more unfortunately, they thought trying to nab both just outside of the tower was a good idea. Worst of all, they saw the plain jeans and t-shirts on the guys doing the heavy lifting and assumed Foster had hired a moving company.

Rumlow’s annoying commentary was forgotten the instant the fighting broke out. He was closest to Darcy (of course he was) when the mercenaries rolled up and made their first grab for her. He dropped the box of equipment he’d been carrying with a crash that might mean Jane was going to cry later and put himself directly between her and one of the goons. The idiots had at least had enough forethought to send a dozen guys, but even that number didn’t really stand a chance. Still, they managed to get Darcy into the back of a van with her wrists bound and a blindfold around her eyes. They never got the door closed to keep her in, though. With four pops of gunfire (Rollins, she would later learn, had been the one packing heat) the tires deflated. She struggled viciously until she finally managed to twist her way out of the zip ties on her hands like Natasha had taught her.

A hand came down on her shoulder. Obliviously to the notably absent sounds of a continuing fight, Darcy moved on pure instinct. They’d managed to take her because they kept both arms occupied and she couldn’t get to the taser. Not this time. She whipped off the blindfold and aimed at the blurry shape looming over her without waiting for her vision to clear.

It was standard practice for STRIKE agents to train against tasers. The members of the STRIKE team Steve worked with had trained (and been slightly modified with special drugs based on Erskine’s serum, though Steve didn’t know about that little addition to their physicals) so much that every one of them could basically ignore the pain caused by a normal taser’s voltage. Darcy’s taser was something like the fifteenth or sixteenth model Stark had made for her.

Rumlow was unconscious for two days.

He woke up in the tower’s infirmary. Darcy had left him so many apology baked goods that he’d be able to feed everyone in the Triskelion sweets at every meal for a week and still have leftovers. Tony appeared at his bedside to show him the taser footage barely an hour after he came to. Then, of course, he expounded on all the amusing ways people had thanked Darcy for what she’d done. Ignoring that she was technically on Jane’s payroll, he’d personally given her a hefty bonus.

Natasha Romanov and Nick Fury sent gift baskets.

Rollins sent a dozen roses and asked her out to dinner.

 

_ ~*~*~*~ Bonus: No Apology Needed ~*~*~*~ _

Shortly after the fall of the Triskelion, Natasha took Darcy with her when she was invited to tour a prison facility full of captured HYDRA agents. (Someone’s idea of good PR, to be sure.) They both submitted to every requested search with no argument, and neither was found to be carrying any weapons. Shortly after they left the facility, Jack Rollins was found twitching and drooling on the floor of his cell.

Tony treasured his hacked footage, didn’t bother to include it with any highlight reels, and never brought it up outside the circle of the Avengers.

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Electricity Can Make Things Go Boom ~*~*~*~*~*~**

The labs at the tower started to feel simultaneously a little crowded and strangely empty in the wake of the Ultron fiasco. Vision was a particularly interesting conundrum, and he seemed to be okay with Tony poking and prodding at him pretty indiscriminately. Unsure of exactly what had been done to her, Wanda submitted to a battery of tests as well--anything to keep her mind off of Pietro. Nobody talked about the side of the lab where Bruce had worked that was steadily gathering dust. In Jane’s lab, most days included an argument. She’d only just gotten back from an excursion to Taiwan and was already packing for a stay she’d accepted at an observatory in South America. Thor wanted her to stay closer to the Avengers for a while for her safety. She didn’t agree.

After Darcy bemoaned the fact that she was never in one place long enough to date or try to have a life outside of keeping Jane fed, Tony flat out offered her a job with the team. None of the Avengers, new or old, seemed to take the best care of themselves. Darcy had the knack of handling scientists down to an art, and with how well she’d gotten on with everyone when they were all in residence he was sure she’d do just fine. Jane had only put up a token protest, both too peeved with Thor and too eager to jet off to her next study.

That was how Darcy came to be in the primary lab alone at two o’clock in the morning. Tony hadn’t exactly forgotten that he’d asked Vision and Wanda to come in for a couple more tests. He’d just passed out on the sofa in the commons after Darcy had doped one of his weirdo drinks with a sedative to make him sleep for the first time in three days. How was she supposed to know he’d set up appointments like a normal human for once?

Unlike every other person who’d startled Darcy before, Wanda was quick to defend herself. She redirected the darts from the taser just before they would have connected with her chest. They latched onto Vision’s chest instead. Or would have. Vision made himself incorporeal, and the darts connected with whatever weird creation Tony had been building that afternoon.

Wanda managed to shield them all from the explosion, though most of the lab didn’t fare as well.

Tony played the footage back on a loop for a week.

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Stark's Sweet Revenge ~*~*~*~*~*~**

When word got out that a man who could shrink to the size of a bug had not only broken into the facility but handed the Falcon his ass and stolen some tech Tony and Steve reluctantly agreed to give the guy a brief tour as a gesture of friendship. They also hoped it might encourage him to ask instead of stealing next time. What bothered Tony the most about the whole ordeal was who they’d found out he worked with. Hank Pym had worked with his father, but they’d apparently had some sort of falling out and Pym had never had an qualms about expressing his displeasure with the Stark family any time Tony had interacted with him.

It was that history of negative interactions with Pym that inspired Tony to get together with Sam and concoct a little plan. They asked Scott Lang to show up with his suit so they could run him through a training session. Stark distracted Rogers while Sam continued the tour. As they made their way toward the lab where Erik Selvig was working, Sam explained the completely fabricated inter-facility prank war. Then he explained that they didn’t really want his suit for training. They wanted to use him for part of the war. At the far end of a hallway he pointed out the curvy lab manager through several rows of glass.

“That,” Sam explained, whispering conspiratorially, “is Darcy Lewis. She swears you can’t spook her and thinks she’s the queen of pranks, but she’s never had anybody suddenly grow from the size of an ant on the desk in front of her before.”

Lang fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

The cameras caught him growing to full size in a come hither pose right on top of the files on her desk. The mics in the room caught Darcy’s shriek of “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” with excellent clarity. Both audio and video were captured of the subsequent tazing, twitching, and drooling.

Tony sent Hank Pym a copy of the video on a USB drive with a big red bow.

Both Pym and his daughter sent back thank you notes addressed to Darcy.

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Even Secret Avengers Aren’t Safe ~*~*~*~*~*~**

Tony’s whole ‘I’m mad at Steve and you can’t make me give it up’ schtick lasted for a whopping month and a half after the incident with Zemo and the Accords. Luckily, it wasn’t like buying a private island was outside of his means. He picked a spot in the Caribbean and promptly started setting up what he’d decided to call the Avengers Vacation Facility. From air and sea the whole place looked like a posh private resort with its own landing sites for any sort of aerial vehicle they could come up with. Inside it was basically just like the other Avengers facility only beach themed. Of course, Tony couldn’t be in the Caribbean and the public face of the Legal Avengers in New York at the same time. 

So, naturally, he promoted his favorite lab manager who may or may not have smarted off to and insulted literally every government employee (high ranking or otherwise) that had made an appearance at the main facility since the U.N. bombing that killed Wakanda’s king. Plus, her impressive rack had proved distracting on his fifteen year old wall-crawling protege. And she’d been complaining about boring facilities and the crappy upstate climate. It was the better decision for everyone, really. 

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that finally, after years of laughing at the misfortune of others, Tony had managed to accidentally startle Darcy in the wee hours of the morning when she shuffled out of bed for a three a.m. cookie snack. She’d reacted in the only way that could be expected, and Tony had been unconscious in the infirmary for a couple of days. But that totally wasn’t a factor in the decision to send her a couple thousand miles away. Not at all.

Personally, Darcy was thrilled with the decision. She got a change of scenery, didn’t have to babysit Tony, and would get to hang out with Steve again. Total win. She was so thrilled with the idea that she was completely focused on all of her new beach party plans and setting up Scott Lang’s new lab when Steve and his oldest friend arrived from Wakanda, and she didn’t hear them come in.

“Miss Lewis, good to--”

She didn’t even shout before she reacted, whipping the taser (Mach 46--Tony had gone on a science bender after the Accords) out and firing blindly behind her. Her gaze followed after.

“OMG, did I just taze the embodiment of freedom?” She stared down in horror at Captain America’s twitching form on the lab floor. “Even with the whole ‘he’s a fugitive from the United Nations’ thing I think that’s considered an act of treason.”

“Don’t get so bent out of shape about it, doll.” Bucky Barnes, the guy she’d only ever seen in history books, the fucking  _ Winter Soldier _ laughed while he reassured her and slung a companionable arm (in this spring’s hottest shiny blue vibranium) over her shoulder. “Stevie’s been beat up by way worse than a pretty dame before. This is an improvement.”

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~ Thank the God ~*~*~*~*~*~**

The explosions had finally stopped. Darcy panted hard as she leaned against a bit of rubble. She was supposed to be safe on the island. There was no population of civilians, and all of the super folks had gone off to fight. None of the main fight had made it to her. Just way more of the grunts than she could handle. Most of the facility was destroyed. She’d been so sure that she was going down with it.

And then the storm rolled in.

It had been actual years since she’d seen Thor. Suddenly, there he was. His hair was short, one of his eyes was gone, and there was a definite absence of a certain hammer. He flew her to safety and set about beating the living hell out of every one of Thanos’ goons that had come to the island. He’d won. The silence was proof of that.

When Darcy peered around the edge of her little safe haven, she was shocked to watch Thor fall to the ground, rolling to his back beside one of the strange alien creatures. Panicked, she rushed to his side. She thought he was breathing, but there were so very many wounds scattered across this body. She hadn’t noticed them when he’d landed, but some were clearly from battles prior to the one he’d just fought to protect her. She was startled to find some of his blood on the shorts and gauzy top she was wearing.

“Think, Darcy,  _ think _ ,” she muttered. A quick search of his pockets--and they were not easy to search; leather pants are tight--turned up none of the nifty stones he’d first carried in New Mexico. “Stay with me, big guy.” Swearing, she glanced toward the remains of the ‘resort’. What had been the infirmary was completely caved in. Mentally, she ran through the fight she had just witnessed. Something about the lighting… every time Thor had seemed to lose energy, the storm had picked up and he was revitalized. “Okay, so, I’m gonna try something and if it doesn’t work you aren’t allowed to yell at me.” She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth. “Actually, yell at me all you want so long as you don’t die.”

Pushing to her feet, Darcy took three careful steps back and unholstered her taser. She’d spend a couple of the devices clips before Thor had arrived, but she always kept a couple of spares hidden in her bra in case she ran out or lost her reserve. No one ever searched the girls too hard. With a deep breath, she aimed directly at Thor’s chest and pulled the trigger. His body convulsed and his remaining eye flew open. A great crack of thunder came from overhead and a single bolt of lightning connected directly where she’d aimed. With a scream she dropped the taser and fell flat on her butt.

When the dust cleared, Thor was sitting up. He twisted his head from one side to the other, then fixed her with a wry grin. “Lady Darcy. It’s good to see you again.”

“Samesies,” she agreed. She blew an errant strand of hair out of her face. “You scared me for a second there, Starman.” 

“Probably shouldn’t call me Starman. Apparently there actually is a Star-Lord and since he came back with me things might get confusing.” He rubbed at his chest, sparks crackling at his fingertips. “Thank you for your quick thinking. I needed the shock.” His gaze never left hers, though his expression faded from a grin into something she might almost call smoldering. Her heart began to do a non-terror kind of pounding in her chest. 

“What’s that look for, dude?” she asked, willing the blush not to take over her face. It didn’t work. 

In response, Thor’s eyes just grew darker, pupils blown. “I was just thinking that I might have chosen the wrong woman on my first trip to Midgard.”

It really was convenient that they had the entire island to themselves.


	4. Must Include a Kazoo - PG - Darcy/Heimdall

When the professional hero caretaker was unhappy, everyone suffered. 

This was a truth that everyone working with the Avengers had come to know very well. The first time Darcy Lewis was displeased, it was because some idiot newbie told her that she was never going to be able to keep up with former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and that only someone with real training could ever expect to be useful to the Avengers. The entire stock of spices and condiments in the cafeteria mysteriously disappeared--consistently, no matter how many times replacements were ordered--for two straight weeks. Everyone was subjected to the most bland food they had ever encountered until Steve Rogers figured out who had said what, gave a blistering lecture, and forced an apology. The spices and such were returned overnight, though no one had ever been able to sort out how she’d done it. 

Not long after, when Tony put his foot down on the suggestion that the facility should be decorated for Halloween,  _ someone _ explained to Vision that it was the season of purposeful jump scares and someone who could phase through walls could really be living the dream. After several days of everyone getting an unexpected visit decorations went up and Darcy calmly explained that jump scares worked best when used sparingly. There were probably a dozen similar incidents over the years, but the true face of how unpleasant and annoying an upset Darcy could be wasn’t revealed until after the dust from the Accords had settled.

Secretary Ross began to be a regular visitor. Darcy, always in charge of hosting guests and putting on the best show of hospitality, completely disappeared for the first two visits. Like, no one could find her on the entire planet kind of disappeared. Several people whispered speculation that Romanov had been tutoring her. Others insisted that she was some kind of magic. There were still more whispers about a supposed sorcerer in Greenwich Village who’d helped her pay a blood price for complete invisibility at will. 

Look, when you work with super heroes water cooler gossip and strange tumblr theories are really the same thing.

After the disappearances, Darcy began to cause genuine trouble during Ross’s visits. She never did anything bad enough to make Tony fire her, but there were plenty of annoyances. Purposefully switching sugar and salt when baking the sweets, locking people out of the thermostat so the board rooms were all uncomfortably hot or cold, and putting thumbtacks on chair seats were just a few of the things she’d gotten up to. Finally, though, she hit the point where she’d had enough. Somehow, Ross had found out that Clint Barton had a wife. He didn’t know about the kids or even Laura’s name, but he’d started putting into media circulation that he was hunting for Hawkeye’s spouse to ‘ask some questions.’ Every single soul that knew about the Barton family farm was feigning perfect ignorance, and the next time Ross visited, Darcy basically went to war.

Ross didn’t bat an eye when Darcy was already waiting in the conference room that Tony showed him to, her feet propped on one end of the conference table while she reclined in a spinning office chair. He gave her a polite nod and settled into a seat of his own. Darcy fiddled with something between her hands while he pulled papers out of a briefcase and Tony took a chair of his own. Finally, Ross opened his mouth to speak.

“Mr. Sta--”

_ BAAAHHH. _

Startled, both men turned to Darcy and the small plastic instrument stuck between her lips. She quirked an eyebrow in their direction. Ross opened his mouth to speak again. Darcy took a deep breath and blew the kazoo over his words. Again and again. She even made noise while inhaling through the toy.

“Lewis, is that really necessary?” Tony asked, fighting not to smile. She merely raised an eyebrow again, her gaze unwavering.

“Come, Miss Lew--”

_ Baah bah BAAAHHH. _

It didn’t take long to devolve into shouting. Shouting quickly resulted in a very flustered Ross storming out of the compound from the nearest exterior door with papers haphazardly sticking out of his briefcase. At his side, Tony was struggling to suppress his mirth. Darcy trailed behind them, keeping up the steady trumpeting every time Ross tried to talk. When they reached the middle of an open field and Ross had taken a break from his ranting to fume silently, she spit the kazoo out of her mouth.

“Hey, boss-man,” she chirped, coming up between them and looping one of her arms through each of theirs. “Wanna know where I hid all the spices that one time?” Without waiting for an answer, she tilted her head back to stare up at the clouds. “Babe! Now!”

Rainbow lights exploded around them. Sound roared in their ears as they were lifted off the ground, moving at speeds to fast to quantify. Tony’s stomach dropped into his toes. Ross lost his briefcase. Seconds later, they both hit the ground in a glittering domed building. Before them an enormous man in shining gold armor pulled a sword from a huge hunk of stone. Darcy, still on her feet as though traveling across an Einstein-Rosen bridge was as familiar as breathing, skipped forward and threw herself into the man’s arms. He bent low to kiss her, cradling the back of her head in one large hand.

“Hello, my love,” he rumbled when they came up for air.

Still in his spot on the floor, Tony sat back and laughed. “Dammit, Lewis,” he chuckled. “I have three grand in the pool on sex pact with the New York wizard.”

“That was a poor choice,” the Asgardian told him with a chuckle of his own. “The sorcerer’s heart belongs to another.” His gold eyes crinkled as he regarded Tony. “It is good to meet you, Man of Iron. I am Heimdall.” His gaze grew distant, as if something far away had caught his attention. He reluctantly released Darcy. “You don’t have much time, dear one. They are already searching for him.”

Darcy sighed like a petulant child while Heimdall crossed the room to a small chest and rummaged about. “Nothing but trouble, I swear,” she grumbled. “We need a vacation, babe. Time for just the two of us.” The Bifrost guardian returned and dropped a small pouch into her hands.

“A gift from the king.” That got an eyebrow raise from Darcy, and Tony could swear he heard her whisper something about Loki. Which didn’t make any sense given that Thor had told them about his nutcase brother kicking the bucket. “I’m not a fool,” Heimdall assured her with a fond smile. “Keep the family of Thor’s brother in battle safe, and call me when you can be spared for a few days. I am owed a small reprieve from duty.”

“Sweet!” Mollified, Darcy popped up on her tiptoes to give him a quick peck before skipping back to where Ross was finally starting to get a handle on his nerves. Before he could start shouting, she upended the pouch over his head and smirked while glittering dust was absorbed into his body. Then, very clearly, she spoke. “The tip about Barton having a wife was a lie. You’ll pull the media campaign. This little trip never happened.” Ross looked dazed, but he nodded. Darcy threw a blinding smile over her shoulder at Heimdall. He have her a gentle nod, then plunged the sword back down.

Back on Earth, they shuffled Ross off in record time, Darcy smiling all the while and twirling the kazoo between her fingers. Once he was gone and she and Tony were alone, she fixed him with a radiant smile.

“I’m gonna need a couple days off.”


	5. A Literally "Sticky" Situation - G - Loki/Darcy/Skurge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a smidge late because I'm trash who got home late last night and went straight to bed, lol.

“Dude, you had one job.” 

Skurge heaved his massive shoulders in a very put-upon sigh. “Why does everyone keep saying that to me?”

“Perhaps because you’re only ever given one job to do and you still manage to monumentally screw it up,” Loki snarled, golden goo oozing slowly down the side of his face. “Every. Single. Time.”

“And,” Darcy chimed in, struggling to shake a glob of the sugary substance off her hand, “screwing up your one job this time has probably ruined my favorite pair of chucks.”

The three of them were sitting in hardback chairs facing away from one another. They each had their legs bound, and thick ropes tied their arms to their sides and their torsos to the chairs. The room--if you could even call it a room--that they were in would have been white were it not for the yellow gunk coating every available surface. Worse, the glistening stuff was all over  _ them _ , and though it smelled divine it was hardening at a frightening prodigious rate.

“Can’t you do that thing with the whoosh where you’re suddenly in two places at once?” Darcy whined, rattling her chair in Loki’s general direction.

If Loki could have smacked his forehead with his palm he would have done it. “Unfortunately, that trick only works if I can move away from the projected image.” He strained his shoulders against the ropes. They didn’t budge. “I don’t appear to be able to go anywhere.”

“Go visit the giant bee aliens, he said,” Darcy muttered, tapping her feet against the floor for nothing more than something to do. “You love honey, he said. It’s the perfect place for you, _ he said _ .”

Though none of them could crane their heads far enough to see it, Skurge visibly winced. “In my defense, you do love honey,” he insisted. “We take turns picking vacation spots. That was the deal. I would have preferred getting to go watch the fights on that world where Thor got stuck as a gladiator.” Here Loki groaned, preferring not to relive his time in the Grandmaster’s domain. “I chose this place because I thought you would both love it more. Darcy gets food and Loki gets to lord over another alien species he could easily rule. It was a win-win.”

Even Loki had to admit that his partner’s logic was sound, though he wasn’t about to admit it out loud. “Yes, you’re very thoughtful and loving.”

“Ten out of ten best boyfriend in terms of thoughtfulness,” Darcy agreed.

“But,” Loki continued, practically growling, “that still doesn’t really count for much considering that we got here and you decided to start a fight with what was apparently some member of a royal family.” He gnashed his teeth in frustration. “And now we are quite literally stuck in some sort of honeycomb prison where we are slowly being crystallized in the leading local food source.”

Skurge sat for a long moment in deep thought. Finally, he spoke. “So, you want I should break my way out of these ropes so we can get out of here, then?”

The silence that followed somehow managed to echo. After a time, Darcy erupted in short bursts of incredulous giggles. Giggles turned to a full-bodied laugh, and soon tears mixed with honey in streaming down her face. All the while, Loki seethed. When he finally spoke, his words were quietly forced through clenched teeth.

“Has that always been an option?”

“Well, these ain’t exactly Asgard’s finest craftsmanship, love.” There was a resounding crack as Skurge, instead of breaking the ropes, twisted his torso and snapped the back of the chair cleanly off the seat. With a flex of his shoulders the ropes fell to the floor. “I mean, they make everything out of that honeycomb stuff. Pretty much everything here is edible.” To further prove his point, he was gnawing on one of the chair’s arms when he came to stand in front of Loki.

Darcy and her chair fell to one side as she laughed even harder. “I take it back,” she wheezed. “Best. Vacation. Ever.”


	6. Wardrobe Malfunction - G - Darcy/Doctor Strange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have known that I wanted this prompt to be about the Cloak of Levitation since the moment the challenge was posted.

When a relic chooses a sorcerer it is bonded to them for the duration of their life. There have been only a handful of incidents over the years when a relic has abandoned its chosen sorcerer, and those incidents can be overwhelmingly attributed to the sorcerer becoming tainted rather than the relic being fickle. Relics, while not fully sentient, do have somewhat of a mind of their own. They will develop a rapport with their sorcerer and are even known to show signs of their own personalities. However, it is widely agreed that no relic is truly a living thing. Their bond is that of a beloved tool to its practitioner, not that of a pet or friend.

At least, that’s what Doctor Stephen Strange had always assumed to be true.

The Cloak of Levitation, though, seemed prepared to completely abandon all known rules. From the day it had first come to him the cloak had shown distinctly sentient traits. It came when it was called, but sometimes chose to flagrantly ignore such calls like an irritable cat. It lavished Stephen with affection, but also had a tendency to pout. Worst of all, while the Cloak had definitely decided that it belonged to him, it was not above turning to others in the name of guaranteed affection. Which was why, on a sunny spring Tuesday, the Cloak was nowhere to be found when Stephen was getting dressed in the morning.

He knew, of course, exactly where the velvet traitor had gone. Music was echoing up through the Sanctum from the kitchen. There was only really ever one reason for music in the kitchen, and that reason was why both sides of Stephen’s double bed were rumpled that morning. He made his way downstairs without the Cloak’s familiar weight on his shoulders and followed his ears--and, of course, the wafting scent of french toast. Stephen stopped in the doorway, a half-smile already fixed on his face. No matter how grumpy he might be over his relic’s choice to leave him behind, he honestly couldn’t blame it for doing so.

Darcy was singing as she whipped something in a bowl. She shook her hips in time to the music, turning to make goofy faces at the Cloak like one might make to entertain a child. The Cloak was dancing with her, flitting through the air from one side of her to the other. Finished with whatever was in the bowl, she set it on the counter and flipped the slices of toast in the skillet with a flick of her wrist. Then, she faced the Cloak full on and took one its edges in hand to whirl it about as though they were waltzing. Somewhere in one of the turns she finally spotted Stephen leaning against the door jamb.

“Morning, Mr. Potter!” she called, spinning beneath several folds of fabric and skipping to his side.

“If you’re going to go with famous wizard references, I really do prefer Merlin,” he pointed out, sliding his arms about her waist. The kiss he bent to give her was twice as long as he’d intended, but he never could bring himself to hold back with her. “I see you’ve abducted my Cloak again.”

She rolled her eyes at him and wiggled out of his arms. “They are their own Cloak, thank you very much,” she insisted. The Cloak practically purred as it came up to her and rubbed against her side. “Besides, all you were doing was the whole shower and shave routine. Super boring. I was more fun.” Darcy danced back across the kitchen, transferring the perfectly golden french toast to a plate and beckoning him with one finger. “Now, let’s have a nice family breakfast before you two disappear into your mystical chicanery. I swear, you’re worse than the scientists.”


	7. Bodyswap - PG-13 - Darcy/Maria Hill

If there was one thing that Darcy didn’t like about her steady work with superheroes it was the ridiculous amounts of paperwork. There were forms for literally everything. She had a form for her preferences if she was hit with sex pollen. She had a form for her preferences if tower residents were forced into arranged marriages for the benefit of procreation. She had forms for who was and was not allowed to pretend to be her spouse should she end up in the emergency room or suddenly develop amnesia and need a super-advocate to take care of her affairs--because, you know, they couldn’t just call her mom or something.

“Oh, come on!” she cried when Maria Hill pushed what had to be the eight hundredth form across the desk to her. “Bodyswap Contingency and Non-disclosure? How likely is it that we will ever even have to use this?”

The answer to that question ended up being an average of bi-monthly except during Loki visits when being bodyswapped became an hourly hazard. Then, of course, there was the time Thor had brought Loki in from some galactic crime spree he’d been on with the intention of keeping him around for a month. In the first week alone there were forty-three cases of bodyswaps. And for some reason,  _ NO ONE WOULD BAN LOKI FROM THE FUCKING TOWER _ . There really weren’t words to describe how disheartened every member of staff had been when their petition for a ban was rejected the thirty-second time. Loki was too much of a risk to keep anywhere else on earth, and apparently being around Thor actually kept him calmer a large portion of the time.

Personally, Darcy thought that assessment was actually submitted by Loki posing as the staff psychologist. The ‘psychologist’ dismissed her theory as paranoia. And then turned into a snake and slithered off after Thor while hissing something to the effect of “No one will believe you.”

By the time Loki was on his fourth visit to the tower, Darcy was seriously regretting signing the non-disclosure portion of the form. She officially knew the exact specifics of every Avengers genitalia. Length, girth, circumcised versus uncircumcised, ratio of cock to balls, manscaping details, prominent areas of sensitivity… You name, she knew it. She’d been every one of them. Some more than once. A couple more than twice. And one particular individual whose rank and definitely never been Sergeant a whopping sixteen times. (The things she could tell you about certain vibranium prosthetics…)

But, of course, she couldn’t talk about any of those experiences. Couldn’t share any of those details. Couldn’t have a girl’s night trading details, stories, and experiences over an excellent glass--fine, multiple bottles--of wine where all the prominent ladies of the tower cackled like hyenas and generally scared the living hell out of the menfolk.

Well, she wouldn’t have been able to do that last one if Natasha hadn’t insisted. Really, she was coerced. So were Maria, Jane, Helen, and Pepper. Totally no female conspiracy there. Who would be stupid enough to take them to task for it anyway?

It was the morning after one such non-existent story-swapping slumber party when Darcy woke up in a bed that was distinctly not her own. This, of course, was no longer a new experiences. She heaved a sigh, closed her eyes, and started the usual ritual. She ran her hands over her head and face, making note of hair that felt very much like her own unruly mane of curls and the distinct distinct lack of stubble. She jumped when a voice piped up from the pillow beside her.

“Are you seriously doing a bodyswap check?”

Startled, Darcy’s eyes flew open. She lifted her hands in front of her face and stared at her own chipped fingernail polish. Tiliting her head to one side, she blinked owlishly at Maria Hill where she lay on the neighboring pillow. The night before came back in a rush. Wine led to truth or dare, which in turn led to confessions. Confessions led to a very good night. “Oh, thank fuck,” she babbled before she could stop herself. “I really hate having to pee with a penis.”

The day started with naked laughter, and when the giggles stopped they couldn’t really find a reason to put on clothes.


	8. Must Include a Unicycle - PG-13 - Darcy/Stephen Strange

“This is all your fault.”

Unamused at the accusation, Doctor Stephen Strange scoffed at the man beside him. “My fault? And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“You brought us here, didn’t you?”

“The kaiju present a significant threat both to Earth by itself and the galaxy at large. Aren’t you the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’? I was just trying to be polite and share jurisdiction.”

“ _ ‘Sharing jurisdiction’ _ ?” Peter Quill snarked, incredulous. “More like sharing responsibility for screwing it up.”

“It’s not screwed up yet. Besides,  _ I’m _ not the one who told the pint-sized rodent inventor that unicycles are, and I quote, ‘the most badass Terran military travel device”. Where did you even come up with that one?”

“Dude, you try rolling through the galaxy with him looking to steal everyone’s prosthetics and see if you don’t convince him of weird Earth shit for kicks.” Peter shook his head. “And bringing your girlfriend along?”

“Miss Lewis is not my girlfriend.”

“You’re banging the hot intern and she’s way out of your league. Own it.”

“She’s a highly capable and intelligent young woman. How was I supposed to know that she’d get on so well with your tree demon and psychotic roadkill? And I certainly couldn’t have predicted... _ this _ .”

This, as it happened, was a large part of the action taking place below them in the center of Sydney’s abandoned downtown district. An explanation might require backing up a bit. In his day to day life dealing with problems in the Multiverse, Doctor Strange had discovered a parallel universe where Earth became embroiled in a bitter war with massive alien creatures called kaiju. The kaiju were the military might of an alien species that sought to overtake worlds as they needed them. Humanity, of course, being stubborn about their own extinction fought back with giant robots and a combination of sheer will and stupidity. Stephen could think of no way that aliens who travel through dimensional portals wouldn’t be a threat to his own Earth and had decided to do a little reconnaissance on the matter to make sure he was prepared. Aware of their existence and frequent dealings with other universal threats, he’d invited the Guardians of the Galaxy along. And, because he hated taking notes, he’d brought the young woman who’d stomped into the New York Sanctum and demanded that he offer her a job.

He hadn’t known that the furry tech guru of the Guardians would be enamored with jaeger technology. He hadn’t expected that Darcy would be just as enamored with Rocket and Groot. None of them had been the slightest bit suspicious that maybe that trio would do something crazy. Like hoarding parts, stealing the tech to create their own neural handshake, combining it all with some of Rocket’s own homebrew tech, powering the nightmare with stolen Anulax batteries, and then joining in the fight.

_ Drift compatibility _ , as it so happened, was a remarkable thing. And Darcy, Rocket, and Groot were drift compatible.

Rolling through the streets of Sydney on its single wheel, the trio’s improvised jaeger looked like something out of a five-year-old’s greatest dreams. It was more sleek and shiny than it had any right to be given that it was cobbled together from scrap. It had a short torso and comically long arms that both ended in spiked fists. To keep balance on the massive spinning wheel Rocket had fashioned in place of legs it used a long, striped tail that bore a striking resemblance to Rocket’s. The whole thing was wired with speakers that blared music so loud it drowned some of the sickening crunches as the jaeger made contact with the kaiju it was fighting. 

Stephen and Peter Quill stood on the open deck of the rebuilt Milano, watching the whole ordeal with varying degrees of amusement, annoyance, and dread. Rubbing his forehead, Stephen reached blindly out to the side and flipped the switch to play the connection for their communicators through the ship. It only took a few seconds of hearing Darcy and Rocket cackling in perfect sync while they talked about how stupid the kaiju looked trying to deal with them before he flipped the switch back off.

“How are we going to get them out of that thing?” he asked with a weary sigh.

“Eh. Just let them finish with the monster. They’ll come out on their own when they get hungry.”

“When this is over, we are keeping them on separate ends of the galaxy.”

“Oh, absolutely. Those three together are a fucking nightmare.”


	9. Mistaken Identity - G - Darcy/Bucky Barnes

It was probably the glasses. People expected the scientists to look as smart as they were reported to be, and society had been weirdly conditioned to believe that corrective eyewear meant intelligence. That had to be why nearly everyone that wandered into the labs assumed that Darcy was one of the scientists and not the babysitter that made everybody stop to eat and then put them down for nap-nap.

Honestly, it had become a pretty fun game. It was usually interns or lower-level administrative assistants that made the error. They’d never been around bona fide geniuses who could make miraculous leaps but couldn’t remember to brush their teeth. So, they came to Darcy with their wild questions and the assumption that she had the answers. Darcy, being herself, led them on a merry round of back and forth quips until they were thoroughly confused before pointing them in the direction of the brain they were actually seeking. Some days she even randomized a bingo card online and marked off squares as she achieved things. All in all, great pastime.

But, of course, it couldn’t always turn out as hilariously as she’d hoped.

It was ten thirty on a Tuesday morning. So far, she’d misdirected a starstruck receptionist who wanted Jane to autograph a copy of a book that mostly got sales because it mentioned how she met Thor, answered medical questions that a school nurse would have been able to answer in their sleep in place of Helen Cho, and actually gotten someone to answer two of her three riddles before they realized that she wasn’t actually Betty Ross who, coincidentally, didn’t even work at the Tower. Combined with her Science! Bingo free space she was well on her way to a winning diagonal.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Darcy didn’t even look up from the game of Candy Crush she was playing on her phone. “How might I help you, oh scientifically curious one?” She swiped and tapped furiously. The next level was so close.

“Ah… I was told to come here to see about the Rainbow Bridge project.”

 _Score_. ‘Fan Trying to Nose into Asgard Business’ was the corner spot she needed. It happened all the time. There hadn’t been an active project on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge in a while--largely because Jane now had full access to Heimdall to study the phenomenon from a more complete perspective. Didn’t stop hangers on from appearing.

“Oh, yes, the Bridge,” she said sagely, finishing her level as she nodded. “A beautiful path to travel between the realms.” She finally looked up to see who was questioning her and immediately burst into loud, raucous laughter. Across the lab, Bruce jumped a bit in surprise, the objects on his table rattling a bit.

Standing in front of the desk Darcy was currently relaxing behind was Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Avengers and their closest buddies were the only people who were actually allowed to have any access to Jane and the Bifrost stuff, but unless they needed to give Thor a call when he was off world they really wouldn’t have any need to make use of that access. Since Darcy knew for a fact that Thor was currently downstairs plowing through a ton of pop tarts and enjoying recordings of pro-wrestling, there was no way the Winter Soldier needed Jane.

“Oh, honey,” she cooed, reaching out to pat his hand. “Did Tony send you down here?”

Barnes bristled. “So what if he did?”

She sympathized. She really did. Stark was an asshole. “Because there’s not really a Rainbow Bridge project to be checked in on. He’s hazing you.”

“That figures,” he growled, leaning forward to plant his metal hand against the desk. After a long moment he looked up. His eyes grew calculating as he gave her the once over. Darcy had the sudden feeling that she was getting to see exactly what all those history books meant when they called Bucky Barnes ‘painfully charming.’ The smirk he gave her was positively sinful. “My time coming down here doesn’t have to be wasted at least. Care to let me take you to lunch?”

To hell with Bingo. She had a better offer.


	10. Must Include Cowboy Boots - PG - Darcy/Logan

Her boot heels clicked against the wood of the bar’s floor as Darcy made her way through the crowd. She would definitely have preferred to be in her favorite worn Doc Martens, but… when in Rome and all that. The pair she’d found for this little adventure did at least have a bit of her own personal style. The leather was a rich chocolate brown with details in deep purple and a brilliant turquoise. They even had a few flashy rhinestones embedded in the design and pretty tassels that dangled just over her ankles. Of course, that still didn’t make up for the fact that she was wearing cowboy boots and a poofy crinoline skirt in a bar that played nothing but Alan Jackson songs and had a steer’s head on the wall. 

She was going to kill Steve Rogers for talking her into this.

“Howlett’s always had a soft spot for a pretty dame in a cute pair of boots,” he’d insisted, batting those All-American baby blues in just the right way to make any woman who’d ever vaguely considered liking the dick to do exactly what he wanted. Patron of truth and justice he may be, but anyone who’d spent more than a passing amount of time with Steve knew that he was just as much of a charismatic manipulator when he needed to be. Stupid Captain Americ-ass with his stupid freedom booty and promises to help lug equipment for every foreseeable Sciece! adventure the future might have to offer.

Steve was convinced that his old army buddy was going to be an asset in the fights to come, but with the whole fugitive thing he obviously couldn’t go make a show in public to recruit the man himself. So, she’d agreed to bite the bullet, release the old Texas accent she’d been trying to shuck for the majority of her life, and go fetch the Wolverine from his latest smoke-filled dive. She was, at least, getting the perk of a decent hotel room and a wallet stuffed with cash to get her through the process of convincing a new soldier to join the ranks.

Darcy spotted James “Logan” Howlett on the far end of the bar surrounded by a cloud of cigar smoke. His eyes were fixed on the game showing over the bar, but she saw the moment his nostrils flared and he caught a whiff of her perfume. Steve told her to avoid strong scents. She’d ignored that completely to give herself a liberal spritzing of her favorite offering from Bath & Body. It was a risky move since he might hate the smell and tell her to fuck off on principal, but at least she’d caught his attention.

“Did Rogers suggest the boots?” His question froze her in place when she was still a few steps away. He hadn’t even turned from the television screen. “Dumb kid always was naive enough to believe it was a lady’s shoes I was interested in.”

Sighing in annoyance, Darcy hopped up on the stool beside him and flagged down the bartender. “Hi, yeah, give me bourbon. Double. Neat. Not the cheap shit.” The bartender didn’t bat an eye, which was a nice change since most bartenders seemed to think girls and whiskey didn’t mix. “I don’t know who I’m more mad at,” she admitted once she had her drink. “Steve for talking me into this getup or you for not appreciating it.”

“Oh, make no mistake, darlin’,” he assured her, finally turning away from the game to flash her a cocky grin. “I’m appreciating it plenty.” His eyes trailed from the top of her head all the way down to her toes and back up before they settled on her face. “Maybe the kid was paying more attention than I thought.”

A thrilling buzz chased its way up her spine as he looked her over again, and she was suddenly very grateful for the king sized bed back in her hotel room. The tugged the wallet full of bills out of her bra and gave it a teasing wave in front of his face. “Well, then. Want to see how much of Steve’s money we can spend and what kind of trouble we can get into?”


End file.
